Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit

For those like myself who enjoy the absurdist murder mystery of Twin Peaks but who have less patience for the soap operatics that make up the balance of the show, this edit is a godsend. It saves the viewer the chore of watching the entire show, and lays the groundwork for the superior (and not coincidentally, more Lynch-controlled) Fire Walk With Me and The Return. The only criticism I have is, as others have pointed out, the re-framing of the Black Lodge sequences from the end of the series and therefore the truncation of Cooper's ultimate fate, which sets the stage for The Return. So a word to the wise: you may want to partake of the series finale even after watching this edit. Aside from that, a fine achievement, renewing my interest in the hermetic small town with the damn fine coffee.

Positives:

Technically great. Audio/video are excellent, and it looks great in widescreen. You get the whole Laura Palmer story all in one sitting. Most of the pertinent scenes are here and fit in seamlessly, with a few exceptions. All of the unenjoyable filler is removed. No more Nadine ridiculousness or idiotic Civil War reenactments!

Negatives: The edit is just too straightforward, almost to the point where it is un-Lynch-like. Really the only Lynchian weirdness left is the visions various people (especially Cooper) have. Gone is any mention of the Black Lodge, which is my favorite aspect of the entire series. The long sequence in the Black Lodge is abridged and reduced to a vision Cooper has in the Road House when he remembers who the killer is (as revealed to him by Laura Palmer in a dream). It's clever editing, but I really miss the Black Lodge being an actual place, which makes the riveting scene where he enters it, as well as the subsequent long sequence inside it, much more impactful than what is seen here.

I would have left in: 1) Almost everything related to the Black Lodge, 2) Enough of the Windom Earle plot (which was pretty good) and surrounding subplots where the events of the final episode, including the entire Black Lodge sequence, make sense, and 3) Any scenes of Lynchian weirdness. For example, the scene where Agent Albert Rosenfield suddenly professes how he models his life after Ghandi and King. All this additional material would probably add an hour or two to the edit, but so be it.

Curiously, Q2's other Twin Peaks fanedit (to the Fire Walk With Me movie) adds in additional subplot elements and strengthens the Black Lodge element, so these two fanedits aren't really compatible.

There are a couple minor problems with the narrative where a transition is awkward because something got edited out that was necessary to explain a subsequent scene. One is the attempt to steal Laura's diary from Harold Smith. The entire Harold Smith subplot was so reduced that we don't know what Maddy is doing when she shows up and looks for the diary to steal.

There is a small problem with the widescreen conversion where, in the scene in the Black Lodge (here just a vision) where Laura flicks her fingers downward, her fingers are out of frame.

A very competent effort, but not what I was looking for. I'm not sure who would enjoy this other than people who don't like David Lynch but are curious about the main story in Twin Peaks.

I finally got around to watching this, and WOW! I'm not a huge David Lynch fan; I get it, but it's not usually for me. As such, I never sat down to watch Twin Peaks, so this is my first exposure. The short version: I loved it! It starts of engaging and a little odd, and then when the season two stuff starts happening, it just gets nuttier and nuttier. The pacing of this thing is a wonder, considering how much was cut. I had no problem following the plot, nothing necessary to my understanding of the narrative as crafted here appeared to be missing, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. There did seem to be some stuff that could be further cut as a few side characters come off as underwritten to the point of being superfluous, but as a Twin Peaks neophyte, I can't say for sure what impact that would further have on the end result. Either way, I enjoyed all of it, and I actually want to sit down now and watch the whole series!

AV Quality: I left this score as a 10, but on the mp4 version I watched, the volume levels were extremely low. On my stereo, I normally have the volume at 9. Some discs or channels I might have to up it to 12. This video I had to turn my volume up to 18 to hear it. This didn't negatively affect the viewing experience at all, just a minor inconvenience at the start.

Visual: Again, I left this at a 10, but there was at least 1 error I spotted. Specifically, there was a video transition where the fade out scene, there were a few flash frames where you could see the start of the deleted next scene in the fade out.

Audio: There were 5-10 transitions where unfortunately the audio really gave away that these scenes were pasted together and didn't originally air that way. Usually it involved the first scene having a heavy score and the 2nd scene starting with no music. So the change was pretty abrupt. Not 'hard cut' abrupt, but enough to be somewhat jarring and remind that this is an edit.

Narrative: Narrative was strong, but I downgrade do a 9 because there were some plotholes. But cutting that much material, its pretty much inevitable, and the editor probably did about as good as could be done.

Enjoyment: For reference, I would score Twin Peaks Season 1 a 9, this edit a 7, and Twin Peaks Season 2 a 3. So I liked this edit much better than season 2. However, next time I am in the mood for rewatching, I will just watch season 1 again. Generally, with this sort of cult classic show, they tend to get better with each rewatching. I expected to love this edit since the Laura Palmer arc really was the most important one and many of the others were real stinkers (ie 40 year old cheerleader). But my favorite part of Twin Peaks was the quirky humor, and cutting out all the side plots cut out most of the humor (along with cutting out all the garbage). This edit has its comedic moments, but it was pretty serious most of the time. I hadn't really noticed before how much of the comedy was built into the side plots.

Recommendation: I would recommend this edit for someone who has already seen Twin Peaks (at least season 1). Being able to watch a completely story during a single afternoon really is nice, even if its not everything I may have hoped it could have been. However, I would not recommend this edit for someone who hasn't seen season 1 yet. This edit really starts off slow for at least an hour, so I could definitely see somebody new to the series getting bored and giving up.

Q2 has done something I never thought possible,
he made me like David Lynch!

I have never really enjoyed Lynch's films, and while I watched Twin Peaks on and off in high school, I just never got in to it.

Last summer, I picked up the series set from a discount bin on the recommendation of a friend who urged me to give the series another shot.

I watched it all. But boy, was it ever it was a struggle for me... LOL!
I figured Twin Peaks was just not my cup of tea.

But then I watched NORTHWEST PASSAGE, and something just "clicked" for me. I watched the entire epic in one sitting, completely spellbound. It was still strange and weird and at times confusing, but now it felt more directed, more purposeful, and definitely more conclusive.

In my opinion, editing episodic television into an engaging and entertaining new story is the hardest type of fan edit to create. And Q2 has succeeded wildly! I can not believe he reframed every scene into 16x9! It is amazing!

Visually the edit is beautiful. There were couple audio fades/transitions that I thought were abrupt and could have been smother. But this is pretty close to perfect.

Thanks for the great murder mystery Q2!

I may have to rewatch Twin Peaks again!